As you prepare for your address before the American Legion in Nashville,
Tennessee, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth encourages you to use this
opportunity to clarify your actions in Vietnam and your statements about
your fellow Veterans and shipmates when you returned home. Since you have
made your four-month tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of your campaign, we
respectfully insist that you be truthful. The public is owed a full and
honest accounting of your actions. Veterans are owed an apology from you
and an acknowledgement that there was no basis in fact for the accusations
you made against them.

I'm a former Swift Boat officer and early member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. I am also an attorney licensed and authorized to practice law in the State of Texas. Below are listed the names of eleven Swift Boat officers of a total of 20 depicted in the referenced photograph with your client, Senator John Kerry. They are:

George Bates
Thomas Heritage
Terrance Costello
Robert "Rocky" Hildreath
Robert Elder
William Houle
George Elliott
William Schumadine
Al French
Larry Thurlow
Jim Galvin

These officers demand that Senator Kerry's campaign cease and desist from all uses of that photograph, taken on January 22, 1969. To my knowledge, of the remaining eight individuals, Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Crosby are deceased and Messrs. Baker, Bernique, Imbrie and MaCann have not indicated a willingness to presently take any position regarding Mr. Kerry.

We write from our common heritage as veterans of duty aboard Swift Boats in the Vietnam War. Indeed, you should note that a substantial number of those men who served directly with you during your four month tour in Vietnam have signed this letter.

It is our collective judgment that, upon your return from Vietnam, you grossly and knowingly distorted the conduct of the American soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen of that war (including a betrayal of many of us, without regard for the danger your actions caused us). Further, we believe that you have withheld and/or distorted material facts as to your own conduct in this war.

We believe you continue this conduct today, albeit by changing from an anti-war to a "war hero" status. You now seek to clad yourself in the very medals that you disdainfully threw away in the early years of your political career. In the process, we believe you continue a deception as to your own conduct through such tactics as the disclosure of only carefully screened portions of your military records. Both then and now, we have concluded that you have deceived the public, and in the process have betrayed honorable men, to further your personal political goals.

Your conduct is such as to raise substantive concerns as to your honesty and your ability to serve, as you currently seek, as Commander-in-Chief of the military services.